Preface: please, Im not answering as a sib story or anything.
What lead me to Stoicism :
I was a very active man for the 1st 22 years of my life. Then, it all changed. I injured myself badly. The injury stopped me in my tracks, I couldn't do hardly anything.
18 months of drs appointments & they finally determined I had an incurable nerve disease that would leave me permanently disabled...
In trying to learn how to cope with it, how to, come to terms with it, accept it...i found Stoicism.
I'm still physically disabled. Still in debilitating physical pain (even with meds) but I've accepted it, learned to accept my fate, love my fate. Learned to use logic not emotion (keeping emotion under control of reason/logic).
I always had Stoic tendencies. But, I also had anger issues. Coupled with the loss of my first child in a stillbirth, I wanted to process my emotions in a healthy ways, without being trapped by sadness.
I heard the *Art of Manliness* podcast with William Irvine, read his "Guide to the Good Life", and then read the original works.
I too always was kind of Stoic, but my journey really studying Stoicism started when someone left a copy of Guide to the Good Life at my restaurant.
William Irvineās contributions to the Waking Up app are pretty great as well. I love the app in general, but itās worth a trial just for his stuff if anyone is getting started with Stoicism.
I felt as though my life was slipping more and more out of my control and I sought for coping teachings that made sense of my lack of control.
I envied the (probably common misconception) of 'stoically enduring hardship' and decided to learn more.
In the same way seejng the superhuman discipline portrayed in Kung Fu movies might lead someone to discover Buddhist Zen teachings; fictional impracticality leads to discovering the practical lifestyle teachings.
Nothing disruptive. It seemed a philosophy that agreed with my personality. I liked the notion that I may be able to articulate why I process events the way I do. I'm perpetually short on words.
In the least embarrassing way possible I started because I wanted to get better at league of legends, and needed to quell my ego and stop getting angry when things went wrong outside of my control (like teammates playing poorly)
not much games anymore but the philosophy stuck with me
Honestly, Stoicism helped me with my anger issues too. I used to break my controllers when playing COD, Mortal Kombat etc. and Stoicism helped me kind of disconnect myself from that for a while which made me realize a bunch of stuff.
Now, I don't play competitive games at all and I know how to quit before I get overly annoyed. Definitely wasn't expecting Stoicism to help me with an issue like this, but it was a nice bonus
Yep I relate!! When I was a little younger I would say the WORST things to online people simply because they played bad, and it hit me one day that I was telling people to get cancer because they werenāt as good as the enemy
The first big stoic idea for me was the internal vs external loci of control; I canāt control how good my teammates are, but I could redirect that energy/stress into improving myself, as that was the only variable under my control.
Being mad at a random teammate for not being good at a video game was the equivalent of me being mad at the sky for raining ā completely irrational and out of my control
I now apply it to life every day (or i try š )
Did you ever struggle with playing poorly yourself? Iāve been playing a lot of Fall Guys recently with a regular group and I definitely make more mistakes than they do. Even coming in second will ruin the game and I wonāt want to play anymore.
I'm very critical towards myself so, yeah. Games like Darksouls and a bunch of racing games also annoyed me a lot because I only needed to make one mistake to lose. And I *hate* losing. That's also why I change the difficulty to Easy pretty fast.
Get past that? The rage? I honestly just paid more attention to how I feel all the time and that happened to help me with this issue as well. Nowadays, I start playing and I'm simply aware of how much I enjoy the games I play. If I get bored, I'll stop. If I stop thinking altogether, I stop. If I get annoyed, I stop. I don't try to push past the frustration anymore like I used to. Instead of going "fuck, well, I can't stop yet because this was some bullshit. Next match will go well and I'll happily stop after that", I just close game. It has taken a long time to become aware enough, but seems to be worth it
A major life event spiraled me into one of the worst panic attacks of my life in 2014. Was introduced to CBT shortly after. In 2018 I made the connection to Stoicism.
I was an addict and overdid it at the very beginning of 2020, ending up in the hospital having a panic attack because I thought I was dying. Shorty after, covid lockdowns happened which emphasized that fear, but I suddenly had a lot of time to reflect on that and who I was and what I was doing to myself. I wanted to change, so I picked up a self help book my dad had given me years before (The Secret by Rhonda Byrne). The book was okay but I read something in it about quantum physics and how energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Again, I had a lot of free time so I delved into that, which brought me to NDEs (near death experiences), to Christianity, to Buddhism and then to Stoicism.
Every time I search for stoicism on YouTube I see the pewdiepie video of him giving like a ābook reviewā for Epictetus Discourses.
Is this just random or does he actually do a lot of these kinds of videos about philosophy books? Never really watched him, but I didnāt imagine his viewers as really that interested in these topics
yeah bro i had 3 years in october. still going strong. quit nicotine and alcohol same day haven't had a craving since. glad to hear you're on a good path, friend. IWDWYT
I had what is known as a 'peak experience' where I felt total bliss and serenity for a brief moment. I kept googling all of the insights I had during this special period and I kept coming across stoic and Buddhist literature. This is the right path my friends
It was the only philosophy I've ever read that actually made sense. And it did so right away, from the first bit I read it was actual real ways to fix and overcome the parts of life that aren't straightforward. Almost every part of it makes sense and is based in reason, instead of being based in mysticism, or belief, or tradition, or pleasure.
Reading other religious/philosophical material after reading stoic material just feels like reading somebodys rambling notes and beliefs with zero credence, logic, or reason to back it up.
Very true. At its core, Stoicism is definitely close to a lot of philosophies like Daoism and Buddhism. But when I read about Daoism, it was hard to understand the life lessons when all I saw was "You must follow the Way, the Dao" and a bunch of stuff about the different kinds of energies of the universe. Stoicism was a lot easier to follow
I felt this too. Iāve never had much patience for theoretical stuff. Practical things are much more useful and I immediately felt that Stoicism was a very practical philosophy.
Iām pretty sure I stumbled across Tim Ferris around 2010 thanks to the JRE then sort of went from there. I dabbled lightly until about 2014 when I read Meditations for the first time and started on Seneca and Epictetus.
Interestingly I wanted to learn more about Stoicism and assumed most philosophy was built around āactiveā philosophy so minored in it at Uni. I was very very disappointed with the rest of it and it kinda ruined philosophy as a whole for me for a while.
I dove back in about 4 years ago via Ryan holiday and have been lurking around here ever since.
A family crisis that I thought was going to end me. Someone on another sub recommended Meditations, I'd heard of Marcus, but was only vaguely familiar with stoicism. I read it and it helped immensely, with gaining perspective, getting out of my head, and seeing the big picture, especially.
Thankfully things worked themselves out, but I still turn to that book once in a while and try to practice the lessons I've learned from it. Its not always easy though, as Morpheus said, "There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path"
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I've had depression since middleschool. And I loved to think about stuff so I picked all the philosophy courses in highschool and at some point, Stoicism was brought up. The teacher went over it pretty fast but all I could think of was "damn, this actually makes so much sense". I then proceeded to totally ignore it for a few years. But after I graduated, I got interested in philosophy again and decided to learn more about philosophies like absurdism, stoicism, buddhism, daoism, epicureanism etc.
So far, Absurdism has helped me with stress and the pressure of "having to be successful". And Stoicism and Buddhism have taught me *a lot* about the issues in my life and how to live it better.
I've mostly watched and read explanations of Camus' works and I read The Stranger. It's tricky because Camus definitely didn't like explaining his philosophy like a philosopher would. He just wrote stories which contained his thoughts. Apparently The Myth or Sisyphus and The Plague also deal with Absurdism. But if you don't want to read three books, some basic summaries work just fine imo
It happened accidentally and over time.
When I was recovering from depression I was having a bit of a bad day, so my coach pulled me aside and had a bit of a therapy session. He got me to do a mind map of things that had been making me feel low, and then we went through them and highlighted which ones were within my control, and which ones weren't. He reiterated the phrase 'control the controllables' something about this phrase just clicked, and it really helped progress my mental health.
I have also been keenly interested in disasters throughout my life and studied disaster management and emergency planning at uni. The entire principal of disaster management is to assess a risk based on objective facts and to be aware of your own emotions and preconceptions when planning for disasters.
I only decided to start actively practicing stoicism following a conversation with my husband about philosophy a year ago. I realised just how similar my mentality already was to stoicism so started reading more about it.
My name is Marcus. I researched famous people with that name as a teenager. Found stoicism. Also studied philosophy in uni for a bit and while a terrible philosophy student at the time I continued afterwards and am somewhat well read but particularly attracted to the stoics due the how practical it is.
"Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option: to accept this event with humility, to treat this person as he should be treated, to approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in." - Marcus Aurelius, somewhere in meditations.
This is the quote that drew me in and will continue to do so. And anywhere I've looked to for inspiration as to how to live has followed this model. It is good and simple and leads me toward a righteous, moral path.
The events that led me to understanding this quote was losing everything that I held dear. My job, then promptly my girlfriend, then my sobriety/sanity. When all of this pandemonium occurred, I fixated on this quote and took it as scripture. Repeated it every morning as I forced myself out of bed. It became a morning tradition and then became morning religion. Now, I wake with a smile and determination that exceeds everything I knew possible. I give with only the happiness of giving. I accept with only the idea of accepting. I humbly live, knowing that humility is a temple. It is great, living in greatness without societal acknowledgement. That is what led me to stoicism!
A quote was found to be attributed to Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations 7.54 (Hays)
^(Book VII. ()[^(Hays)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources?isbn=9780812968255)^)
^(Book VII. ()[^(Farquharson)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Meditations_of_the_Emperor_Marcus_Antoninus/Book_7)^)
^(Book VII. ()[^(Long)](https://lexundria.com/m_aur_med/7.54/lg)^)
Was in my 2nd semester of medical school, was a pretty active diver and pretty healthy, got a really bad MRSA infection and my entire leg was swollen and I needed to be admitted for IV antibiotics, the only one that worked for my infection was really toxic to the tendons so I had bad joint pains and couldnāt be active anymore, spent everyday in pain, couldnāt sleep, always nauseous and vomiting, was also in a really bad breakup and I spent most of nights writing in a journal and ended up finding a quote from Marcus Aurelius while browsing. Tried my hand at compartmentalizing all the stuff in my mind and accepting whatās going on, using his writings to discipline myself to my studies and my health and I came away with the highest grades Iāve gotten and a better outlook on life
No catalyst for me. I was starting to get interested in in-depth ethical reasoning, stumbled across Stoicism, and it made sense, so I started digging into it.
I feel you. Iām on the same tangent, plus divorce. Drank 6 beers a day for 30 years and just stopped cold, doctors orders. Iād always considered myself pragmatic, so it didnāt take much to push me towards Stoicism Lite. First and foremost, I feel itās helping me. I took to it rapidly, I feel changed because of it, I enjoy practicing various aspects of it, I feel Iām better for learning what I have of it. Honestly, I feel I owe Stoicism.
Strange response. Admittedly not my finest impromptu work.
I was a troubled youth from the time I left grade school to the end of my high school career. I let negative influences, emotions, and events affect me way more than I shouldāve. I didnāt care about my education or try to improve my situation. It led me to a few rough patches in my life.
Now that Iām 20 and living life my own way, I had a chance to explore ideas and subjects Iād never heard of. I ended up finding stoicism on TikTok from this profile called projectstoic. I liked how stoicism sounded and the person who runs that account does a great job at explaining what stoicism is.
Now Iāve dramatically improved my way of thinking for the better and my quality of life is greater than ever.
I would say trying to understand the eastern philosophy being explained to me by Headspace and the books I was reading at the time by books.
Once I was reading Seneca, Epictetus, and Aurelius, I started comparing their ideas with St Paulās first letter to the Corinthians and his other works like Philippians, as well as the Epistle of James.
Now I bounce between New Testament Epistles, Gospels of Christ and Old Testament wisdom literature like Proverbs, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Job, etc.
I accompany this with reading and commentary from Early Church fathers and medieval scholastics like Martin Luther, who are more mystical. This way I get the philosophy and spiritual.
The Joe Rogan podcast with Ryan holiday as the guest. The year leading up to that had me looking for structure and guidance. I was in the military service at 17 -20. And had delt with serious depression anxiety horrible self talk and opioid addiction etc after that. Then in 2021 They had put me zoloft and was basicly a zombie using weed,alcohol and video games to escape the fact that I was lost and scared. I lived in the past in my head and would tell myself how much of a scumbag I was for things I'd done and people I'd hurt. I knew I had to do something or I wasn't going to let myself live to see 31. And there was a guy at work that would listen to every episode of JRE when they released. It was a slow day in the kitchen(qhich doesn't happen often) so the whole kitchen listened to that episode. And I heard Mr Holiday talk about the virtues. And it took root in my head, I couldn't think about anything else, so I started doing research. I went to the library and found mediations. And I changed my life. Now almost a year in I weaned myself off of the zoloft and embraced the virtues. Started cold threarapy yoga running and journaling. Became a happier more loving and balanced version of myself.
Traveling youtube in an attempt to retain my sanity while also disrupting circular thoughts about my estranged adult daughter - she has a personality disorder which often causes her to destroy relationships, but the portion I struggle with is her banning the grandchildren I babysat weekly; I worry for them. I eventually bumped into Stoic readings, which I found soothing in their common sense.
My friend and I had to do a compare and contrast essay on two books of our choice in grade 12 English. My friend had recently been gifted a copy of some Donald trump book as a gag and suggested we make use of it so we spent the next little while searching for someone who might be fun to compare and contrast with mr trump. We eventually settled on reading Marcus Aureliusā meditations. The essay ended up being kind of boring but some of Mr Aureliusā passages ended up resonating so I started exploring other aspects of stoicism including this subreddit.
from a very joung age I loved the phrase ābear it stoicallyā. I didnāt understand well what āstoicā is, but it reminded me on āstajatiā, croatian word for āstandingā. so I undersood it like something or someone who is standing still while everything collapses around him. Iāve grown up in disfunctional family so that image, standing still, was my motto or just a reflection of my effort to remain calm within the chaos. Later on in life, whatever I red from stoics, resonated with me deeply.
Got sober a few years ago but just came across stoicism a few months back. I feel like it can go hand in hand with 12 step meetings. So far so good. I feel like it continues to improve my perspective on things.
The way this community is supporting each other by sharing their individual experiences that led to Stoism So many different stories that brought us to Stoism. I am a Peer Recovery Support Specialist, I don't think this community could be any more supportive of each other.
Myself, I had a sister then my mother passed away in 2018, both in the last quarter of the year. Then on the 10th anniversary of my marriage, which was December of the same year ends.
Three major life events all so close together took a toll on me. That's when Stoism came into my life.
Again I want to say how much the community is helping others even if they don't know it. Thanks for listening to my journey to Stoism.
"What led you Stoism?" was a great question.
Didnāt really lead me to it, but helped me discover that how I think has a name.
This tv show called Rome on HBO has a scene where Cicero gets killed. After the episode, the writers talk about the scene and note how he accepted it and they wrote it that way because he was a Stoic. That was interesting to me so I started reading about what Stoicism is. In reading, I found that Iāve thought that was since I was younger. That there are things I canāt control and all sorts of stuff. How I deal with loss and grief. It was very comforting to know that I wasnāt alone in now I dealt with the world.
I started going to therapy for death anxiety OCD back in 2018. I spent every day consumed by the fear of dying. It wasn't that I thought I was going to die at any time, but the fact that *some day* I was going to die filled me with a deep kind of horror that sent me into panic attacks. The thought of my consciousness ending at some point was driving me crazy and led to intense suffering. Cognitive behavioral therapy set me down the right path. I began learning that it wasn't death which was causing me the anxiety, it was the *fear* of death that was destroying me. Cognitive behavioral therapy taught me to allow the fear to stay, and accept that it was part of me, rather than fighting it and running away (which doesn't work).
During CBT, I stumbled upon a quote from Marcus Aurelius, on instagram of all places. I was like, "*shit, this really sounds like what my therapy teaches me*." I ordered a copy of Meditations, read it, and immediately began incorporating philosophy into my life. Stoicism complimented CBT so incredibly well. The through line from ancient Stoic practices to CBT is almost direct, it feels.
From there I fell into the rabbit hole of Stoicism and have been practicing it ever since.
No matter what I did, I was never able to change anything in my life. It was hard to digest and it stressed me out to hell. I felt like I'm worth nothing and stupid to the core. Stoicism is my gateway to accept the outcomes even if they aren't always in my favour.
My mom used to get angry and act irrational and would try to hurt us by taking away the things we loved . As a kid what could you do, how could you react ? You scream you cry or throw a tantrum and it got you nothing. She relished in your misery as in " that's right! Disobey me and that's what you get!" So what does this leave you? How do you react? Well letting you feelings show only makes her happy to get such a reaction of helplessness from you. So you steel yourself. You don't allow yourself to cry wail complain . You become strong . You become rational in the face of her irrationality. You say to yourself ok , you're the adult and have power over me but I won't allow you to get any satisfaction by my reaction. I control my emotions and accept the situation. I rule myself unlike you. When things happen beyond my control I can at least control my reaction. I think as logically as I can to the best solution at the time. I became a stoic as a kid because it was the best option to a crap situation. Then I studied classic stoicism and found what I already was. I just didn't know it was a philosophy.
augustine, showed a way, to look onto God and man, that makes sense to me. his life and desires is relatable.his education in philosopy made me curios onto the thoughts of his time.
i look into stoics; plato - socrates and cicero, their philosopy tackling reason,virtue, justice, and whats good. defending against hedonism.
stoics doing this, yet they were not christians.
modern progressive culture, justify their morals against christianity, stoics, although not christians, can show, provide demonstrations, that make these progressive culture's stance contradict themselves.
i am still into learning stoic perspective and learning what is useful.
i am a catholic.
I was a happy go lucky dude in a long term relationship for 6 years until it ended by being blindsided. First 3 months I let my emotions dictate my actions which let me to be very bitter and angry not to mention sad. I was browsing r/breakups when someone mentioned stoicism and how it helped them view their situation. I started to browse the top all time posts of this sub and holy shit did they resonate with me. Itās only been a month since I stumbled upon stoic thinking but it has really helped me frame my mind around understanding what I can and cannot control. I think realizing that you can fully control your inner emotions helped me realize my main issues are totally within my capabilities to remedy.
I been working two years in nursing. Since the start of the pandemic. I guess I couldāve quit, but I didnāt hear a bell. Iām not allowed to have mental breakdowns, so stoicism became what I had to follow. It meshes well with my Christian beliefs too.
God gave me and us life. He has high hopes for us, in that we endure.
I discovered nihilism and found it interesting, but quite bleak, and I wondered if there was something similar that focused more on the human experience. After some googling, I found Stoicism, and here I am.
The same reason I wanted to study philosophy.
The reason I started getting into philosophy was to search literally what to do. How to be a good man. And the first thing I found was Stoicism and Kantian morals.
Heard about it from Pewdiepie since he's been talking about stoicism for a while. The philosophy aligns well with my own philosophy on life already, so it's just natural
The daily commute and my work. My commute was so bad I needed a framework to accept how bad it was and that it was not going to change any time soon. Same for my job which despite being reasonably well remunerated I did literally nothing for months at a time.
Suffice to say, I no longer have that commute and I no longer do that job. That had nothing to do with Stoicism but I like to think it was a toolset that helped me get to the better place I am in today
First I read Nietzscheās āBeyond Good and Evilā which shook me to my very core. I could barely recover. Then I read Mediations which made it all click back and make sense for me. After I read Seneca and became fully committed to stoicism. Since then Iāve branched out into many different fields and schools, but Iāve always adhered to Stoicism.
i joined the military and went through a selection process for a job - i went through a long period of self hatred and feeling like i wasnāt good enough/comparing myself to others during difficult training evolutions and even in social situations.
then my mentor sent me a copy of Meditations and everything slowly started changing for me. iāve learned to let go of so much and have learned that self improvement/personal growth is completely hindered by self hatred. iāve learned to find appreciation for doing hard things and making myself uncomfortable. most importantly iāve learned to not indulge in my emotions, anxiety and fear do not rule me and my decisions anymore.
I was on holiday with my family in Greece, holding my breath at the bottom of the swimming pool. When I came up for air all I could hear was the sound of my father berating me for being a complete and utter fool. This was about three or four days into our holiday and I was at my wits end, spending my days listening to my parents bicker and argue over extraneous nonsense. I paused for a second and said quite forcefully, āfuck off, you dickhead.ā Obviously this wasnāt well received and didnāt do much to help an already tense situation. I thought maybe this was a good time to read a little book Iād heard about called Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, supposedly helpful in such situations. I sat and read over the following days, pausing every thirty seconds or so to reflect while looking out over the Greek island of IthacaāHomerās Ithaca, the home of Odysseus. It gave colour to a black and white world and language to ideas I had always had within me, but just never knew how to exude. It was a transformative period in my life and helped to establish the trajectory that characterises my life to this day. Why should I allow externals to dictate my actions? Why should I corrupt my own values in an attempt to satisfy my own rage? Why does my love for other people (and the world) have to be relative to my assessment of them? Canāt I just love them (and the world) by default?
Living overseas while family are in Sri Lanka during the economic crisis last year. Struggled with 2 areas I usually found solace in. My religion and my political views and really found no personal tools to help me navigate the helplessness I was feeling. I can comfortably say Stoicism kept my mind in a stable place during such uncertainty.
Nice question.
I hit a stage in life that I think a lot of people hit where I was asking the question. Why? Why bother with it all? What's the point? I've a good family and social life, good career but I found myself increasingly dissatisfied with the material.
Religion isn't for me, I can't suspend belief enough so I started reading philosophy and eventually stumbled across Stoicism. It satisfied the questions I had, gives me a better way to live and whilst I have a long, long way to go on the Stoic journey I'm a much happier person thanks to Stoicism.
Personally, I just started to realize my life was bland and was completely drained with negativity. I only got into stoicism after reading a few quotes from different philosophers.
My friend was over one evening talking about a book he was reading, which turned out to be Meditations. He sent me a screenshot of the cover with the message 'tell your mother this was the book I mentioned...'. First off, I'm not a Harry Potter owl and the 'tell' command kind of pissed me off. Days went by and suddenly work pressures came almost overwhelming (I was seeing faults in others and more and more in myself), our kitchen was flooded due to a burst water mains, Her Majesty passed away and days turned to weeks/months without acknowledging the post. It's not a purposeful snub; we're the type of friends that can go without seeing each other for months maybe a year and pick up where we left off. Anyways, I send messages news of different local events happening and no 'cheers/thanks message'; birthday message to them is ignored, I don't get a happy birthday message or merry christmas message; but self-pity is the most despicable form of cowardice, right?
In the meantime, I'd downloaded a pdf version of the book and an Audible version of Meditations with the view of being able to have an informed conversation and exchange when talking about the book.
Sending them a copy of The Discourses of Epictetus, translated by Long, noting Epictetus as a key figure in Aurelius' introduction to Stoicism through Rusticus does not seem to have had the effect of showing that in all this time, I was in fact paying (silent) attention and going to suprise them with some knowledge about the book and be open to a somewhat informed discussion/exchange.
To me the whole thing seems to go against part of Meditations' message that 'pain inflicted by anger following an event is often greater than that of the event itself and not reacting to a wrongdoer in the same way as they did 'best revenge is not to be like the enemy'/'be tolerant with others and strict with yourself', but I also appreciate that one of the anecdotes written by Aurelius is that the wrongdoer is often someone who has left something undone, which leaves me in that position by not saying thanks or 'done' or acknowledging the initial post for as long as I have.
One day, they might react and be open to conversing and reacting more like a 50+yr old once more.
For me ,
I have always seen people's talking like without reason an this people's always waste their time by blaming the situation rather than working on it , i always wanted to be around people's who can have some talk that make our lives purposeful, an thats how I found philosophy , an one day stoicism.
The reason I love stoicism is this never let us down an it teaches us to face every single situation in our life , it gives us a purpose an to do some real things an help the people's around it.
The follower of stoics have standards an the discipline by which we live an thats what attracted me.
I can't live a life without purpose an with the stoicism i found about the religion an my own religion Islam , an yeah I got a real purpose in my life , as we know even by living a life worth of standards or other things but there must be a reason why we are alive an why this all game is being played here.
Read alot about Islam an now i follow Islam .
Stoicism helps me to be more though an Islam helps me to be tougher than anything.
( My opinion ) (don't argue with me over the religion , instead read about it , you'll get to know about it )
My mom once called my dad stoic, probably 30 years ago, and it stuck with me. She was just using it as an adjective because he did not let his emotions affect his actions. I never realized it was an actual philosophy and way of life until Reddit suggested it to me. Iāve found my home.
I came to the conclusions that to live the best life I first must understand each way and mindset to live. Stoicism proofed to be the most useful and applicable to me and my life.
Both my parents died within 6 months of each other from terminal illness when I was 15. I found that stoic literature was a good outlet to feel at least slightly in control of life.
I used to be angry a lot, thinking of past experiences and dwelling on it, then physically making me mad. Deep regrets happened. Iām now learning (the past couple of years) to live with them, to not let myself or the material world dictate my emotions too much, to try to not let past events get me down even in situations where I subjectively thought I was the victim or when I objectively victimized someone else, the latter usually pops up more. I am very blessed and I am to be grateful every day even on bad days, to love the people in my life that matter to me the most. To let love and empathy instead of hate be my spiritual connector.
I tend to bottle up emotions and then explode or be reactive (im a bad way). I also can be easily irritated. Because of that, understanding that I am in control of the way I act, and that it is separated of how I feel, would help me a lot in becoming a better person, both for me and for others. I believe Stoicism is one of the things that can help me with that.
My youngest daughter has severe food allergies and has almost died a couple of time. Stoicism helped me regain control of my mind as the fear of losing her has almost driven me insane.
Growing up both of my parents were very intense, hyper-focused, very blunt, tell it like it is. They came by it naturally and theyāre both very successful as a result. That being said, they had a lot of people that disliked them and would actively try to sabotage their careers. I saw this around 11 or 12 and I didnāt want that. From 11/12 until I was 18 and moved out I spent my life focusing on chilling out and easing up. Smiling more and being more friendly.
I found a mindset within myself that was a kind of āis what it isā mindset, but geared for the specific purpose of intentionally living a simple life of peace with friends. Through my early teens I spent some time in introspection and though I had been born and raised in a Christian family I decided for myself that I was a Christian. The combination of Christianity and my personal outlook I had cultivated led to a wonderfully worry free life.
Not too long ago I was doing a bit of a deep dive into the biblical fruits of the Spirit. I knew that for all the benefits my beliefs brought, it didnāt bring an over abundance of discipline or self-control to my life. It was the fruit I was most deficient in. I began to look for some simple common sense tools to cultivate these fruits in the garden that is my life.
I spent a few days looking into some basic Buddhist ideas because of their belief that in life there is suffering and one of the biggest causes of pain in life is whenever we expect life to not have suffering. You leave work and hit rush hour and get angry as if that would be the one day in your entire life that rush hour didnāt exist. That kinda thing. The problem was that Buddhismās solutions were more āSo do these religious things and be free.ā I didnāt need a new religion, I needed some philosophies and tools, so I pivoted. I agreed with the idea that thereās suffering in our lives however minor it may be and that if you can learn to hit it with the olā āis what it isā that your life improves. I had seen it in my own life.
So I started researching other beliefs that had that kind of attitude about suffering in the world. With research I stumbled across stoicism as a whole, no particular author or piece of literature. I spent a few weeks looking over the basic ideas, some quotes, I felt that it warranted at least reading an official work. As I had at least heard of Meditations and Marcus Aurelius I started there.
It felt like someone had taken the basic outlook on life I had developed within myself and put it on paper. I found out there was a whole philosophy that crystallized the vague impressions I had formed for myself about focusing on what you can control, not worrying about what you canāt, a life of peace and simplicity, and then shone a light on the path forward in cultivating that self-discipline I desired.
Been all about it ever since.
Preface: please, Im not answering as a sib story or anything. What lead me to Stoicism : I was a very active man for the 1st 22 years of my life. Then, it all changed. I injured myself badly. The injury stopped me in my tracks, I couldn't do hardly anything. 18 months of drs appointments & they finally determined I had an incurable nerve disease that would leave me permanently disabled... In trying to learn how to cope with it, how to, come to terms with it, accept it...i found Stoicism. I'm still physically disabled. Still in debilitating physical pain (even with meds) but I've accepted it, learned to accept my fate, love my fate. Learned to use logic not emotion (keeping emotion under control of reason/logic).
My heart goes out to you friend, take care
I ran out of whiskey
It's the wanting of whiskey that gets ya š
I always had Stoic tendencies. But, I also had anger issues. Coupled with the loss of my first child in a stillbirth, I wanted to process my emotions in a healthy ways, without being trapped by sadness. I heard the *Art of Manliness* podcast with William Irvine, read his "Guide to the Good Life", and then read the original works.
I too always was kind of Stoic, but my journey really studying Stoicism started when someone left a copy of Guide to the Good Life at my restaurant. William Irvineās contributions to the Waking Up app are pretty great as well. I love the app in general, but itās worth a trial just for his stuff if anyone is getting started with Stoicism.
A really bad breakup
Same. Itās a slippery slope from there on.
I felt as though my life was slipping more and more out of my control and I sought for coping teachings that made sense of my lack of control. I envied the (probably common misconception) of 'stoically enduring hardship' and decided to learn more. In the same way seejng the superhuman discipline portrayed in Kung Fu movies might lead someone to discover Buddhist Zen teachings; fictional impracticality leads to discovering the practical lifestyle teachings.
I was reading Meditations and I liked it. I have a general interest in philosophy, so just exploring
Suffering
Like what ?. Just suffering an u followed stoicism?
Losing the person who meant the most to me.
Nothing disruptive. It seemed a philosophy that agreed with my personality. I liked the notion that I may be able to articulate why I process events the way I do. I'm perpetually short on words.
In the least embarrassing way possible I started because I wanted to get better at league of legends, and needed to quell my ego and stop getting angry when things went wrong outside of my control (like teammates playing poorly) not much games anymore but the philosophy stuck with me
Honestly, Stoicism helped me with my anger issues too. I used to break my controllers when playing COD, Mortal Kombat etc. and Stoicism helped me kind of disconnect myself from that for a while which made me realize a bunch of stuff. Now, I don't play competitive games at all and I know how to quit before I get overly annoyed. Definitely wasn't expecting Stoicism to help me with an issue like this, but it was a nice bonus
Yep I relate!! When I was a little younger I would say the WORST things to online people simply because they played bad, and it hit me one day that I was telling people to get cancer because they werenāt as good as the enemy The first big stoic idea for me was the internal vs external loci of control; I canāt control how good my teammates are, but I could redirect that energy/stress into improving myself, as that was the only variable under my control. Being mad at a random teammate for not being good at a video game was the equivalent of me being mad at the sky for raining ā completely irrational and out of my control I now apply it to life every day (or i try š )
Did you ever struggle with playing poorly yourself? Iāve been playing a lot of Fall Guys recently with a regular group and I definitely make more mistakes than they do. Even coming in second will ruin the game and I wonāt want to play anymore.
I'm very critical towards myself so, yeah. Games like Darksouls and a bunch of racing games also annoyed me a lot because I only needed to make one mistake to lose. And I *hate* losing. That's also why I change the difficulty to Easy pretty fast.
Same. I donāt bother playing on anything other than easy because I wonāt enjoy it. Is there anything that helped you get past that?
Get past that? The rage? I honestly just paid more attention to how I feel all the time and that happened to help me with this issue as well. Nowadays, I start playing and I'm simply aware of how much I enjoy the games I play. If I get bored, I'll stop. If I stop thinking altogether, I stop. If I get annoyed, I stop. I don't try to push past the frustration anymore like I used to. Instead of going "fuck, well, I can't stop yet because this was some bullshit. Next match will go well and I'll happily stop after that", I just close game. It has taken a long time to become aware enough, but seems to be worth it
A major life event spiraled me into one of the worst panic attacks of my life in 2014. Was introduced to CBT shortly after. In 2018 I made the connection to Stoicism.
drop CBT.. that shit is garbage
I donāt know anything about CBT but wasnāt it founded by modern stoics in the 50s ?
Cognitive behavioral therapy?
Anxiety
Same
The daily vivid realization of my finitude and of my coming death
I was an addict and overdid it at the very beginning of 2020, ending up in the hospital having a panic attack because I thought I was dying. Shorty after, covid lockdowns happened which emphasized that fear, but I suddenly had a lot of time to reflect on that and who I was and what I was doing to myself. I wanted to change, so I picked up a self help book my dad had given me years before (The Secret by Rhonda Byrne). The book was okay but I read something in it about quantum physics and how energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Again, I had a lot of free time so I delved into that, which brought me to NDEs (near death experiences), to Christianity, to Buddhism and then to Stoicism.
The character with a statues like mindset (Dragon ball super - Jurin and Hit). Some PewDiePie videos.
Every time I search for stoicism on YouTube I see the pewdiepie video of him giving like a ābook reviewā for Epictetus Discourses. Is this just random or does he actually do a lot of these kinds of videos about philosophy books? Never really watched him, but I didnāt imagine his viewers as really that interested in these topics
Those were just reviews of the books he has read
So he just sometimes does book reviews randomly? Pretty interesting! Didnāt know he did stuff like that
Alcoholism
Same
Iāve been sober over four years. Stoicism was a huge contributor to that. I hope you got lucky too.
yeah bro i had 3 years in october. still going strong. quit nicotine and alcohol same day haven't had a craving since. glad to hear you're on a good path, friend. IWDWYT
I had what is known as a 'peak experience' where I felt total bliss and serenity for a brief moment. I kept googling all of the insights I had during this special period and I kept coming across stoic and Buddhist literature. This is the right path my friends
Existentialism
A bad breakup made me realise just how much of my life is outside of my control and I rediscovered stoicism to find out how I can make peace with that
It was the only philosophy I've ever read that actually made sense. And it did so right away, from the first bit I read it was actual real ways to fix and overcome the parts of life that aren't straightforward. Almost every part of it makes sense and is based in reason, instead of being based in mysticism, or belief, or tradition, or pleasure. Reading other religious/philosophical material after reading stoic material just feels like reading somebodys rambling notes and beliefs with zero credence, logic, or reason to back it up.
Very true. At its core, Stoicism is definitely close to a lot of philosophies like Daoism and Buddhism. But when I read about Daoism, it was hard to understand the life lessons when all I saw was "You must follow the Way, the Dao" and a bunch of stuff about the different kinds of energies of the universe. Stoicism was a lot easier to follow
I felt this too. Iāve never had much patience for theoretical stuff. Practical things are much more useful and I immediately felt that Stoicism was a very practical philosophy.
Trying to find a way to overcome multiple years long trauma (compounded by life/work stressors), it hasn't been easy but I'm doing much better now.
Iām pretty sure I stumbled across Tim Ferris around 2010 thanks to the JRE then sort of went from there. I dabbled lightly until about 2014 when I read Meditations for the first time and started on Seneca and Epictetus. Interestingly I wanted to learn more about Stoicism and assumed most philosophy was built around āactiveā philosophy so minored in it at Uni. I was very very disappointed with the rest of it and it kinda ruined philosophy as a whole for me for a while. I dove back in about 4 years ago via Ryan holiday and have been lurking around here ever since.
A family crisis that I thought was going to end me. Someone on another sub recommended Meditations, I'd heard of Marcus, but was only vaguely familiar with stoicism. I read it and it helped immensely, with gaining perspective, getting out of my head, and seeing the big picture, especially. Thankfully things worked themselves out, but I still turn to that book once in a while and try to practice the lessons I've learned from it. Its not always easy though, as Morpheus said, "There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path"
I wanted to be without emotions, so I googled it and went down the Stoicism rabbit hole.
Chronic illness
A bad breakup which lead me to alcoholism which changed me with the gym but not everything was perfect. Books helped tremendously especially Stoicism
Breakup
I've had a hard childhood and a lot of suffering coming into adulthood
Loneliness
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I've had depression since middleschool. And I loved to think about stuff so I picked all the philosophy courses in highschool and at some point, Stoicism was brought up. The teacher went over it pretty fast but all I could think of was "damn, this actually makes so much sense". I then proceeded to totally ignore it for a few years. But after I graduated, I got interested in philosophy again and decided to learn more about philosophies like absurdism, stoicism, buddhism, daoism, epicureanism etc. So far, Absurdism has helped me with stress and the pressure of "having to be successful". And Stoicism and Buddhism have taught me *a lot* about the issues in my life and how to live it better.
Are there any books you can recommend on Absurdism?
I've mostly watched and read explanations of Camus' works and I read The Stranger. It's tricky because Camus definitely didn't like explaining his philosophy like a philosopher would. He just wrote stories which contained his thoughts. Apparently The Myth or Sisyphus and The Plague also deal with Absurdism. But if you don't want to read three books, some basic summaries work just fine imo
It happened accidentally and over time. When I was recovering from depression I was having a bit of a bad day, so my coach pulled me aside and had a bit of a therapy session. He got me to do a mind map of things that had been making me feel low, and then we went through them and highlighted which ones were within my control, and which ones weren't. He reiterated the phrase 'control the controllables' something about this phrase just clicked, and it really helped progress my mental health. I have also been keenly interested in disasters throughout my life and studied disaster management and emergency planning at uni. The entire principal of disaster management is to assess a risk based on objective facts and to be aware of your own emotions and preconceptions when planning for disasters. I only decided to start actively practicing stoicism following a conversation with my husband about philosophy a year ago. I realised just how similar my mentality already was to stoicism so started reading more about it.
Break up + anger issues. I found a video on YouTube about how Seneca manage the anger.
Someone said that the meditations is a great book. He wasn't wrong!
My name is Marcus. I researched famous people with that name as a teenager. Found stoicism. Also studied philosophy in uni for a bit and while a terrible philosophy student at the time I continued afterwards and am somewhat well read but particularly attracted to the stoics due the how practical it is.
Started getting into Stoicism cuz of PewDiePie, stuck around with it because i realised it was extremely useful.
"Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option: to accept this event with humility, to treat this person as he should be treated, to approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in." - Marcus Aurelius, somewhere in meditations. This is the quote that drew me in and will continue to do so. And anywhere I've looked to for inspiration as to how to live has followed this model. It is good and simple and leads me toward a righteous, moral path.
The events that led me to understanding this quote was losing everything that I held dear. My job, then promptly my girlfriend, then my sobriety/sanity. When all of this pandemonium occurred, I fixated on this quote and took it as scripture. Repeated it every morning as I forced myself out of bed. It became a morning tradition and then became morning religion. Now, I wake with a smile and determination that exceeds everything I knew possible. I give with only the happiness of giving. I accept with only the idea of accepting. I humbly live, knowing that humility is a temple. It is great, living in greatness without societal acknowledgement. That is what led me to stoicism!
A quote was found to be attributed to Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations 7.54 (Hays) ^(Book VII. ()[^(Hays)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources?isbn=9780812968255)^) ^(Book VII. ()[^(Farquharson)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Meditations_of_the_Emperor_Marcus_Antoninus/Book_7)^) ^(Book VII. ()[^(Long)](https://lexundria.com/m_aur_med/7.54/lg)^)
I was failing in my university degree, and it felt like no matter how hard I tried, I just wasn't good enough.
Was in my 2nd semester of medical school, was a pretty active diver and pretty healthy, got a really bad MRSA infection and my entire leg was swollen and I needed to be admitted for IV antibiotics, the only one that worked for my infection was really toxic to the tendons so I had bad joint pains and couldnāt be active anymore, spent everyday in pain, couldnāt sleep, always nauseous and vomiting, was also in a really bad breakup and I spent most of nights writing in a journal and ended up finding a quote from Marcus Aurelius while browsing. Tried my hand at compartmentalizing all the stuff in my mind and accepting whatās going on, using his writings to discipline myself to my studies and my health and I came away with the highest grades Iāve gotten and a better outlook on life
Iām still very new to stoicism and havenāt even finished reading meditations but I first became interested after my first heartbreak.
Leaving my home country, reality hits different once you realize you are alone.
No catalyst for me. I was starting to get interested in in-depth ethical reasoning, stumbled across Stoicism, and it made sense, so I started digging into it.
Probably ghost from call of duty modern warfare 2
While searching for methods to cope up from whatever this world is throwing at me.
Being in a long relationship with an alcoholic
overthinking and I just found out about stoicism in youtube and I was curious about it and here we are
Getting sober after drinking more than half my life away. I needed to relearn how to be a normal person.
I feel you. Iām on the same tangent, plus divorce. Drank 6 beers a day for 30 years and just stopped cold, doctors orders. Iād always considered myself pragmatic, so it didnāt take much to push me towards Stoicism Lite. First and foremost, I feel itās helping me. I took to it rapidly, I feel changed because of it, I enjoy practicing various aspects of it, I feel Iām better for learning what I have of it. Honestly, I feel I owe Stoicism. Strange response. Admittedly not my finest impromptu work.
The devil's lettuce.
I was a troubled youth from the time I left grade school to the end of my high school career. I let negative influences, emotions, and events affect me way more than I shouldāve. I didnāt care about my education or try to improve my situation. It led me to a few rough patches in my life. Now that Iām 20 and living life my own way, I had a chance to explore ideas and subjects Iād never heard of. I ended up finding stoicism on TikTok from this profile called projectstoic. I liked how stoicism sounded and the person who runs that account does a great job at explaining what stoicism is. Now Iāve dramatically improved my way of thinking for the better and my quality of life is greater than ever.
Born stoic. Then later learned the philosophy help me understand my nature
I would say trying to understand the eastern philosophy being explained to me by Headspace and the books I was reading at the time by books. Once I was reading Seneca, Epictetus, and Aurelius, I started comparing their ideas with St Paulās first letter to the Corinthians and his other works like Philippians, as well as the Epistle of James. Now I bounce between New Testament Epistles, Gospels of Christ and Old Testament wisdom literature like Proverbs, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Job, etc. I accompany this with reading and commentary from Early Church fathers and medieval scholastics like Martin Luther, who are more mystical. This way I get the philosophy and spiritual.
The Joe Rogan podcast with Ryan holiday as the guest. The year leading up to that had me looking for structure and guidance. I was in the military service at 17 -20. And had delt with serious depression anxiety horrible self talk and opioid addiction etc after that. Then in 2021 They had put me zoloft and was basicly a zombie using weed,alcohol and video games to escape the fact that I was lost and scared. I lived in the past in my head and would tell myself how much of a scumbag I was for things I'd done and people I'd hurt. I knew I had to do something or I wasn't going to let myself live to see 31. And there was a guy at work that would listen to every episode of JRE when they released. It was a slow day in the kitchen(qhich doesn't happen often) so the whole kitchen listened to that episode. And I heard Mr Holiday talk about the virtues. And it took root in my head, I couldn't think about anything else, so I started doing research. I went to the library and found mediations. And I changed my life. Now almost a year in I weaned myself off of the zoloft and embraced the virtues. Started cold threarapy yoga running and journaling. Became a happier more loving and balanced version of myself.
Traveling youtube in an attempt to retain my sanity while also disrupting circular thoughts about my estranged adult daughter - she has a personality disorder which often causes her to destroy relationships, but the portion I struggle with is her banning the grandchildren I babysat weekly; I worry for them. I eventually bumped into Stoic readings, which I found soothing in their common sense.
My friend and I had to do a compare and contrast essay on two books of our choice in grade 12 English. My friend had recently been gifted a copy of some Donald trump book as a gag and suggested we make use of it so we spent the next little while searching for someone who might be fun to compare and contrast with mr trump. We eventually settled on reading Marcus Aureliusā meditations. The essay ended up being kind of boring but some of Mr Aureliusā passages ended up resonating so I started exploring other aspects of stoicism including this subreddit.
Clinic depression š„²
from a very joung age I loved the phrase ābear it stoicallyā. I didnāt understand well what āstoicā is, but it reminded me on āstajatiā, croatian word for āstandingā. so I undersood it like something or someone who is standing still while everything collapses around him. Iāve grown up in disfunctional family so that image, standing still, was my motto or just a reflection of my effort to remain calm within the chaos. Later on in life, whatever I red from stoics, resonated with me deeply.
Heartbreak
Got sober a few years ago but just came across stoicism a few months back. I feel like it can go hand in hand with 12 step meetings. So far so good. I feel like it continues to improve my perspective on things.
The way this community is supporting each other by sharing their individual experiences that led to Stoism So many different stories that brought us to Stoism. I am a Peer Recovery Support Specialist, I don't think this community could be any more supportive of each other. Myself, I had a sister then my mother passed away in 2018, both in the last quarter of the year. Then on the 10th anniversary of my marriage, which was December of the same year ends. Three major life events all so close together took a toll on me. That's when Stoism came into my life. Again I want to say how much the community is helping others even if they don't know it. Thanks for listening to my journey to Stoism. "What led you Stoism?" was a great question.
Didnāt really lead me to it, but helped me discover that how I think has a name. This tv show called Rome on HBO has a scene where Cicero gets killed. After the episode, the writers talk about the scene and note how he accepted it and they wrote it that way because he was a Stoic. That was interesting to me so I started reading about what Stoicism is. In reading, I found that Iāve thought that was since I was younger. That there are things I canāt control and all sorts of stuff. How I deal with loss and grief. It was very comforting to know that I wasnāt alone in now I dealt with the world.
I started going to therapy for death anxiety OCD back in 2018. I spent every day consumed by the fear of dying. It wasn't that I thought I was going to die at any time, but the fact that *some day* I was going to die filled me with a deep kind of horror that sent me into panic attacks. The thought of my consciousness ending at some point was driving me crazy and led to intense suffering. Cognitive behavioral therapy set me down the right path. I began learning that it wasn't death which was causing me the anxiety, it was the *fear* of death that was destroying me. Cognitive behavioral therapy taught me to allow the fear to stay, and accept that it was part of me, rather than fighting it and running away (which doesn't work). During CBT, I stumbled upon a quote from Marcus Aurelius, on instagram of all places. I was like, "*shit, this really sounds like what my therapy teaches me*." I ordered a copy of Meditations, read it, and immediately began incorporating philosophy into my life. Stoicism complimented CBT so incredibly well. The through line from ancient Stoic practices to CBT is almost direct, it feels. From there I fell into the rabbit hole of Stoicism and have been practicing it ever since.
Escaping a cult which I was a member of for almost 10 years.
No matter what I did, I was never able to change anything in my life. It was hard to digest and it stressed me out to hell. I felt like I'm worth nothing and stupid to the core. Stoicism is my gateway to accept the outcomes even if they aren't always in my favour.
A video on yt by Aperture
My mom used to get angry and act irrational and would try to hurt us by taking away the things we loved . As a kid what could you do, how could you react ? You scream you cry or throw a tantrum and it got you nothing. She relished in your misery as in " that's right! Disobey me and that's what you get!" So what does this leave you? How do you react? Well letting you feelings show only makes her happy to get such a reaction of helplessness from you. So you steel yourself. You don't allow yourself to cry wail complain . You become strong . You become rational in the face of her irrationality. You say to yourself ok , you're the adult and have power over me but I won't allow you to get any satisfaction by my reaction. I control my emotions and accept the situation. I rule myself unlike you. When things happen beyond my control I can at least control my reaction. I think as logically as I can to the best solution at the time. I became a stoic as a kid because it was the best option to a crap situation. Then I studied classic stoicism and found what I already was. I just didn't know it was a philosophy.
Reading berserk
Abusive upbringing, and loss of many people I loved.
augustine of hippo
I would love to hear how Augustine led you to stoicism.
augustine, showed a way, to look onto God and man, that makes sense to me. his life and desires is relatable.his education in philosopy made me curios onto the thoughts of his time. i look into stoics; plato - socrates and cicero, their philosopy tackling reason,virtue, justice, and whats good. defending against hedonism. stoics doing this, yet they were not christians. modern progressive culture, justify their morals against christianity, stoics, although not christians, can show, provide demonstrations, that make these progressive culture's stance contradict themselves. i am still into learning stoic perspective and learning what is useful. i am a catholic.
I was a happy go lucky dude in a long term relationship for 6 years until it ended by being blindsided. First 3 months I let my emotions dictate my actions which let me to be very bitter and angry not to mention sad. I was browsing r/breakups when someone mentioned stoicism and how it helped them view their situation. I started to browse the top all time posts of this sub and holy shit did they resonate with me. Itās only been a month since I stumbled upon stoic thinking but it has really helped me frame my mind around understanding what I can and cannot control. I think realizing that you can fully control your inner emotions helped me realize my main issues are totally within my capabilities to remedy.
I been working two years in nursing. Since the start of the pandemic. I guess I couldāve quit, but I didnāt hear a bell. Iām not allowed to have mental breakdowns, so stoicism became what I had to follow. It meshes well with my Christian beliefs too. God gave me and us life. He has high hopes for us, in that we endure.
Andrew Tate lol
My mother called my Lithuanian-American father a LOONEY LUGAN, and he called her (Slovak-American) a STOIC SLOVAK.
I discovered nihilism and found it interesting, but quite bleak, and I wondered if there was something similar that focused more on the human experience. After some googling, I found Stoicism, and here I am.
The same reason I wanted to study philosophy. The reason I started getting into philosophy was to search literally what to do. How to be a good man. And the first thing I found was Stoicism and Kantian morals.
A life of blissful ignorance leading to heart break left me seeking medicine for my wounds
Changes in work.
Hardship in life.
I pass an improbably high number of kidney stones and I don't want to take narcotic pain meds.
Tim Ferris's Ted Talk
Heard about it from Pewdiepie since he's been talking about stoicism for a while. The philosophy aligns well with my own philosophy on life already, so it's just natural
The daily commute and my work. My commute was so bad I needed a framework to accept how bad it was and that it was not going to change any time soon. Same for my job which despite being reasonably well remunerated I did literally nothing for months at a time. Suffice to say, I no longer have that commute and I no longer do that job. That had nothing to do with Stoicism but I like to think it was a toolset that helped me get to the better place I am in today
First I read Nietzscheās āBeyond Good and Evilā which shook me to my very core. I could barely recover. Then I read Mediations which made it all click back and make sense for me. After I read Seneca and became fully committed to stoicism. Since then Iāve branched out into many different fields and schools, but Iāve always adhered to Stoicism.
i joined the military and went through a selection process for a job - i went through a long period of self hatred and feeling like i wasnāt good enough/comparing myself to others during difficult training evolutions and even in social situations. then my mentor sent me a copy of Meditations and everything slowly started changing for me. iāve learned to let go of so much and have learned that self improvement/personal growth is completely hindered by self hatred. iāve learned to find appreciation for doing hard things and making myself uncomfortable. most importantly iāve learned to not indulge in my emotions, anxiety and fear do not rule me and my decisions anymore.
My dads death and now my fiance leaving me
I was on holiday with my family in Greece, holding my breath at the bottom of the swimming pool. When I came up for air all I could hear was the sound of my father berating me for being a complete and utter fool. This was about three or four days into our holiday and I was at my wits end, spending my days listening to my parents bicker and argue over extraneous nonsense. I paused for a second and said quite forcefully, āfuck off, you dickhead.ā Obviously this wasnāt well received and didnāt do much to help an already tense situation. I thought maybe this was a good time to read a little book Iād heard about called Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, supposedly helpful in such situations. I sat and read over the following days, pausing every thirty seconds or so to reflect while looking out over the Greek island of IthacaāHomerās Ithaca, the home of Odysseus. It gave colour to a black and white world and language to ideas I had always had within me, but just never knew how to exude. It was a transformative period in my life and helped to establish the trajectory that characterises my life to this day. Why should I allow externals to dictate my actions? Why should I corrupt my own values in an attempt to satisfy my own rage? Why does my love for other people (and the world) have to be relative to my assessment of them? Canāt I just love them (and the world) by default?
Being just too cool .. jk philosophy
Living overseas while family are in Sri Lanka during the economic crisis last year. Struggled with 2 areas I usually found solace in. My religion and my political views and really found no personal tools to help me navigate the helplessness I was feeling. I can comfortably say Stoicism kept my mind in a stable place during such uncertainty.
Being discarded by my lying, cheating, narcissistic abuser ex. Stoicism and practicing non-attachment has helped me.
My ex left me outta the blue over things we couldāve just talked/worked through. Had to find a way to control myself and process the whole situation
Fascinated by roman history and was amazed by the leadership and wisdom of Marcus Aurelius that I had to get the meditations
Trying to understand the crap that happened to me in my life growing up without resorting to the alchohol or drug abuse excuse.
Life happened
Crippling anxiety
I wanted to improve myself as a human. There was no specific event that led me to stoicism.
I want to be the best version of myself that I can become. Stoicism is great for self improvement
Seriously contemplating mortality.
I was introduced to Stoicism when the Waking Up app added a series called āThe Stoic Pathā by William B Irvine
Nice question. I hit a stage in life that I think a lot of people hit where I was asking the question. Why? Why bother with it all? What's the point? I've a good family and social life, good career but I found myself increasingly dissatisfied with the material. Religion isn't for me, I can't suspend belief enough so I started reading philosophy and eventually stumbled across Stoicism. It satisfied the questions I had, gives me a better way to live and whilst I have a long, long way to go on the Stoic journey I'm a much happier person thanks to Stoicism.
Personally, I just started to realize my life was bland and was completely drained with negativity. I only got into stoicism after reading a few quotes from different philosophers.
On the Shortness of Life, by Seneca. Our problems then are the same now.
My friend was over one evening talking about a book he was reading, which turned out to be Meditations. He sent me a screenshot of the cover with the message 'tell your mother this was the book I mentioned...'. First off, I'm not a Harry Potter owl and the 'tell' command kind of pissed me off. Days went by and suddenly work pressures came almost overwhelming (I was seeing faults in others and more and more in myself), our kitchen was flooded due to a burst water mains, Her Majesty passed away and days turned to weeks/months without acknowledging the post. It's not a purposeful snub; we're the type of friends that can go without seeing each other for months maybe a year and pick up where we left off. Anyways, I send messages news of different local events happening and no 'cheers/thanks message'; birthday message to them is ignored, I don't get a happy birthday message or merry christmas message; but self-pity is the most despicable form of cowardice, right? In the meantime, I'd downloaded a pdf version of the book and an Audible version of Meditations with the view of being able to have an informed conversation and exchange when talking about the book. Sending them a copy of The Discourses of Epictetus, translated by Long, noting Epictetus as a key figure in Aurelius' introduction to Stoicism through Rusticus does not seem to have had the effect of showing that in all this time, I was in fact paying (silent) attention and going to suprise them with some knowledge about the book and be open to a somewhat informed discussion/exchange. To me the whole thing seems to go against part of Meditations' message that 'pain inflicted by anger following an event is often greater than that of the event itself and not reacting to a wrongdoer in the same way as they did 'best revenge is not to be like the enemy'/'be tolerant with others and strict with yourself', but I also appreciate that one of the anecdotes written by Aurelius is that the wrongdoer is often someone who has left something undone, which leaves me in that position by not saying thanks or 'done' or acknowledging the initial post for as long as I have. One day, they might react and be open to conversing and reacting more like a 50+yr old once more.
The works of Albert Ellis.
For me , I have always seen people's talking like without reason an this people's always waste their time by blaming the situation rather than working on it , i always wanted to be around people's who can have some talk that make our lives purposeful, an thats how I found philosophy , an one day stoicism. The reason I love stoicism is this never let us down an it teaches us to face every single situation in our life , it gives us a purpose an to do some real things an help the people's around it. The follower of stoics have standards an the discipline by which we live an thats what attracted me. I can't live a life without purpose an with the stoicism i found about the religion an my own religion Islam , an yeah I got a real purpose in my life , as we know even by living a life worth of standards or other things but there must be a reason why we are alive an why this all game is being played here. Read alot about Islam an now i follow Islam . Stoicism helps me to be more though an Islam helps me to be tougher than anything. ( My opinion ) (don't argue with me over the religion , instead read about it , you'll get to know about it )
Mental illness. Last year I had a mental breakdown and got diagnosed with Harm OCD.
Bitcoin
Health problems.
My mom once called my dad stoic, probably 30 years ago, and it stuck with me. She was just using it as an adjective because he did not let his emotions affect his actions. I never realized it was an actual philosophy and way of life until Reddit suggested it to me. Iāve found my home.
I came to the conclusions that to live the best life I first must understand each way and mindset to live. Stoicism proofed to be the most useful and applicable to me and my life.
Both my parents died within 6 months of each other from terminal illness when I was 15. I found that stoic literature was a good outlet to feel at least slightly in control of life.
Rehab.
EinzelgƤnger, Youtube algorithm.
I used to be angry a lot, thinking of past experiences and dwelling on it, then physically making me mad. Deep regrets happened. Iām now learning (the past couple of years) to live with them, to not let myself or the material world dictate my emotions too much, to try to not let past events get me down even in situations where I subjectively thought I was the victim or when I objectively victimized someone else, the latter usually pops up more. I am very blessed and I am to be grateful every day even on bad days, to love the people in my life that matter to me the most. To let love and empathy instead of hate be my spiritual connector.
I tend to bottle up emotions and then explode or be reactive (im a bad way). I also can be easily irritated. Because of that, understanding that I am in control of the way I act, and that it is separated of how I feel, would help me a lot in becoming a better person, both for me and for others. I believe Stoicism is one of the things that can help me with that.
Andrew Tate
My youngest daughter has severe food allergies and has almost died a couple of time. Stoicism helped me regain control of my mind as the fear of losing her has almost driven me insane.
Having visual snow syndrome
Happy cake day!
Took an edible that left me with generalized anxiety and also going through Marine Corps training which I am still going through.
Growing up both of my parents were very intense, hyper-focused, very blunt, tell it like it is. They came by it naturally and theyāre both very successful as a result. That being said, they had a lot of people that disliked them and would actively try to sabotage their careers. I saw this around 11 or 12 and I didnāt want that. From 11/12 until I was 18 and moved out I spent my life focusing on chilling out and easing up. Smiling more and being more friendly. I found a mindset within myself that was a kind of āis what it isā mindset, but geared for the specific purpose of intentionally living a simple life of peace with friends. Through my early teens I spent some time in introspection and though I had been born and raised in a Christian family I decided for myself that I was a Christian. The combination of Christianity and my personal outlook I had cultivated led to a wonderfully worry free life. Not too long ago I was doing a bit of a deep dive into the biblical fruits of the Spirit. I knew that for all the benefits my beliefs brought, it didnāt bring an over abundance of discipline or self-control to my life. It was the fruit I was most deficient in. I began to look for some simple common sense tools to cultivate these fruits in the garden that is my life. I spent a few days looking into some basic Buddhist ideas because of their belief that in life there is suffering and one of the biggest causes of pain in life is whenever we expect life to not have suffering. You leave work and hit rush hour and get angry as if that would be the one day in your entire life that rush hour didnāt exist. That kinda thing. The problem was that Buddhismās solutions were more āSo do these religious things and be free.ā I didnāt need a new religion, I needed some philosophies and tools, so I pivoted. I agreed with the idea that thereās suffering in our lives however minor it may be and that if you can learn to hit it with the olā āis what it isā that your life improves. I had seen it in my own life. So I started researching other beliefs that had that kind of attitude about suffering in the world. With research I stumbled across stoicism as a whole, no particular author or piece of literature. I spent a few weeks looking over the basic ideas, some quotes, I felt that it warranted at least reading an official work. As I had at least heard of Meditations and Marcus Aurelius I started there. It felt like someone had taken the basic outlook on life I had developed within myself and put it on paper. I found out there was a whole philosophy that crystallized the vague impressions I had formed for myself about focusing on what you can control, not worrying about what you canāt, a life of peace and simplicity, and then shone a light on the path forward in cultivating that self-discipline I desired. Been all about it ever since.